Towie star Yazmin Oukhellou has spoken out after being involved in a car accident that claimed the life of Jake McLean.
The reality star was taken to hospital with injuries from the crash earlier in July in which his friend McLearn is believed to have been driving at the time.
They were in Turkey where their Mercedes went over a 70-foot cliff – despite the best efforts of the emergency services, McLean’s life could not be saved.
Yazmin, 28, was pictured after returning home wearing a sling as she recovered from the serious arm injuries.
She has now revealed how she ended up in a sling when she had to break her own arm to escape from the vehicle.
Speak with The sunshe said, “It lay there and bled to death, or broke my own arm trying to save us.”
Yazmin—who had fallen asleep in the car that night after a party with friends—said that it felt like the car was “tumbling forever” while she felt like she was “spinning around in a washing machine.”
“Then it finally stopped and my right arm was stuck.
“The car was upside down. It had an open sunroof and my right arm was just stuck behind my back and under the folded back of the car roof.
“I tried to honk the horn with my foot, but it didn’t work.”
While she continued to recall details of the horrific accident, she said she felt her arm “absolutely covered in blood,” as if she were “in a warm bath.”
Unbeknownst to her at the time, the crash had opened an artery.
“At the same time, I was trying to wake Jake,” she said.
“In my head I said to myself, ‘Okay, he’s just unconscious, I’m alive, so he has to live.’
“I didn’t want to admit to myself that he might be dead.”
Yazmin felt she “had no choice” but to break her arm “out of sheer adrenaline and panic” so she could climb out of the car “with my arm together with my left hand.”
“I ran to the top of the couch, I screamed for help and then suddenly I saw a flashlight.
‘I was half thinking, ‘Oh my god, am I hallucinating’, because we were in the middle of nowhere. I thought I saw the light and died. I just don’t know how I did it. I think it was just pure adrenaline, I hardly thought.’
Yazmin came across a man walking his dog, with the stranger taking off his top to wrap it around her arm.
She assured him not to worry about her and rushed to help her friend.
“I climbed back down and tried to check his heart rate but felt nothing and then the ambulance came.
“They were helping me. I was like, ‘Can you please help him,’ and they said, ‘We just need to get him to another hospital.”
She added: “I think they knew, but for me even now I feel like it’s not real. I still feel like I’m waiting to wake up from a nightmare and it’s just something that never happens.”
McLean, 33, was pronounced dead while being taken to hospital.
He had an on-again, off-again relationship with Yazmin for years, which led to her flying to Turkey while he was there with friends and wanting to reconcile with him.
Sobbing during her interview, she recalled their night before the crash as “amazing,” adding, “Things were perfect — just the way I’d hoped they would be.”
The TV star added that it was her boyfriend who “urged” to drive “high in the mountains,” but falling asleep in the passenger seat likely saved her life.
Doctors told her that because her body was more relaxed, she survived.
“I cut an artery and a nerve, that’s why I was bleeding like that. The doctors called me an angel, a miracle, because it’s a notorious place and people never survived. Now I wonder how the hell my partner died while I survived? It has made me look at life completely differently.’
Yazmin will receive therapy “for a while” to process the traumatic events, as well as clinical treatment.
“I know this will stay with me forever, I have to take it slow.”
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